Top 5 Open Source PDF Editors

The world has gone almost paperless and the era of online document editing has arrived. In the age of the Internet, there is huge competition for open source PDF editor. To all the newbies out there, these software that lets us edit PDF open source, which means for free. Everyone is looking for the best open source PDF editor online. There are actually many options of the software available, but there is always a drawback. Let's discuss some of the open source PDF editors available online, along with their pros and cons.

Part 1Top 5 Open Source PDF Editors for Windows

1. LibreOffice Draw PDF editor

LibreOffice is a strong competitor in the world of PDF editing. It is much like MS Office in terms of power. It is also free and open source software. It's a good option for people who can't or won't use the proprietary software. It has built in all features of an efficient PDF editor open source. Of course, it is not perfect. LibreOffice is a leading alternative to Microsoft Office, just in an inconsistent interface.

Pros:

Allows easy editing of PDF files

Can Add or delete pages

Also allows for editing text and images

Allows file conversion support

Provides facilities of export and import

Digital signing feature available

Cons:

Clunky interface

Confusing menu options

No cloud options

Sometimes messes up with original and backup files

Cannot email directly to windows live mail

Difficulty in compatibility and file types

2. InkScape

Inkscape is much like its competitors, just more preferred because of the strong performance and a wide range of features that it makes available for the users. To edit PDF files, Vector Graphics are used. It is a totally free alternative for using and downloading. It performs all the basic tasks of a full PDF reader and open source PDF editor with full functions such as removing or adding text or images. The best thing is that you can find its portable version without having to install it.

Pros:

Allows exporting to the PNG format

User interface is friendly

Entirely free to use

Is not a heavy software and doesn't take much space for installing

Easy editing of document heavy of graphics

Cons:

It looks familiar with other options available

It lags or stops in most PCs

It is kind of Slow and unintuitive

Does not have enough tools

3. PDFedit

PDFedit is a great and widely used tool. It has all the benefits of free and open source PDF editor software. It can be used as a PDF reader and also includes functions of a PDF editor. The user can detect exactly which sections, words or phrases they want. It can also be used to add texts and images into the PDF file. It also allows the functionality to delete information from the file.

Pros:

Does not take up too much space for installation

Multi-platform support

Its tools allow personalization

Conversion of files is possible

Many more advanced options are available

Provisions for protecting file with passwords is available

Cons:

Usage of the tools brings several difficulties

Still in beta

Some features simply do not work

Some other features show error messages

4. Apache OpenOffice Draw

Apache OpenOffice Draw is popular because of the great jobs it gets done. It can be easily used not just as a PDF reader but also a PDF editor open source. A bunch of features can be found in this software such as customizing PDF pages, saving them in different available file formats, removing or inserting any text etc. It also supports import and export features.

Pros:

A great variety of features

Multiple platform compatibility

Allows easy creation of basic charts

Provides feature for spell check

Cons:

User interface looks out of date

Excel users face problems due to the functions

Takes time in starting up

Many being identified in some versions of windows

Gets slow and cranky while processing large documents

5. PDFSam

PDFSam basic is a PDF file editor that supports merging, splitting and editing of PDF files. It is also open source PDF editor. It is worth trying if you seek to recompose or reorder numerable pages of the PDF file. It is a java application and it can run on any device having Java runtime.

Pros:

Supports visual organizing

Allows re-ordering of PDF pages

User can mix and merge pages

Provision for extracting or splitting pages available

Rotating and saving one or multiple pages is available

Cons:

Visual document composer shows errors

Requires Java

A bit difficult to understand how it works at first

Shortcomings of Open Source PDF Editor

Most of them are unreliable

They involve higher installation costs

There is no guarantee of an update

They offer very basic functionality

They don't offer any proper support

They don't work efficiently with all hardware

There is no guarantee of a continued service and much more!

Part 2A Better Choice than Using Open Source PDF Editor

For solving your entire open source PDF editor problems in one go, Wondershare PDFelement comes to the rescue. It is a PDF file editing solution that is fully loaded with all professional and easy to use tools that allow you to edit, combine, transform and organize PDFs with ease. Some uses you can put PDFelement to are: